A nightmare...

I know my main trauma is just the totally disturbed atmosphere in our home when I grew up. And the fact we had no other adults in our life, so me and my sister were totally on our own mentally. There was never anyone to support our feelings. If we had feelings, our dad got upset and attacked our mom. Just verbally, even non verbal ways, by just short breath and the look, but we knew it meant danger to our mom. Actually, he very rarely was physically abusive. But as we have discussed about it later on with my sister, there is no difference if the hitting actually happened that time or not, the possibility of it was always real and affected like it would have happened every time. The fear we had was the same.

I thought for years I was very close to my mom, until I realized she was the healthier one of them who always had the chance to safe herself and us from there, but instead of doing that, she turned to us, her children, and told us how awful her life was and how awful our dad and his family were. It was true, we felt for her and protected her. We advised and begged for them to break up, but she didn't turn to us to get advice, she just wanted us to support her, and she went on with life like always. It was a custom, always after their fights when dad had past out, we went to look for her from outside, told it's safe to came in, and she vented about her problems. Never once she even had a slightest thought about asking how this all affected to us.

She always said we can talk to her about anything and she will always be on our side. But in the reality, she never asked about any of those things. In order for kids to tell about their hardships, it is the parents job to regularly ask questions and care, and listen. When I was a teenager, and my classmates were so concerned about me they went to talk about me to school psychologist and she came to me asking if I would want to start to visit her, my mom said it was OK, but I am not allowed to tell anything that happens at home. She wasn't concerned about me, she was concerned someone could find out about her drinking and the shameful truth our life was not normal like she pretended.
Like they wouldn't known it already. The house we lived in was not in the condition to anyone to live in. My dad looks like an alcoholic without any doubts. The fact is, she wanted us to be there for her, but she was never there for us. Now she has also admitted that, that she chose to do things easy, not the right way. I do know she has been very depressed also and probably didn't have energy to my problems when they came obvious. Also she has an ability to forget bad things like they wouldn't exist, just like my dad does as well.

And after forbidding me to tell the truth, she was amazed I had lied to the psychologist, and told her stories from my imaginary life. What the heck did she expect me to do in there, not tell the truth, but not lie either? Now I am able to be angry about all this, but then I didn't see her doing anything wrong.

When I was about 20, I had been hospitalized once for my problems and I had been on rehab for dug abuse (legal drugs like bentsodiazepines and codein). I was, for some reason I don't remember, meeting a social worker and she saw from my papers I had that kind of history. I was still living at home, and she said the city can give me my own apartment immediately, so I don't have to live in there with my parents anymore. I was too old to be the customer of child protection service anymore, but they were willing to give me my own home to live in. But I was still so brain washed by my mother, I replied I can not move out, because then my mom would be left alone with my dad. That is what mom kept telling me. My sister had already moved out. The social worker was the first one who told me, my mom is not just an innocent victim. She is an adult who makes her own choices. And just now she is choosing to use me to able her to continue the way of life she is having, at my cost. It's been 20 years when I first heard it from the social worker, and I'm still slowly figuring out how true it was.

Now that my sister has children of her own, the new generation of trauma free children after many generations of traumatized, I can see how she (my mom) has no ability to take any responsibility of children at all. We were very easy to control when we were children, but it was not due to normal discipline and rules to protect us, like it has to be if she babysits for my sisters kids, it was all this disturbed relationships between people that inhibited us from having identity or any feeling of our own. We were under a very strict control all the time, without anyone ever needing to do any discipline or give any rule. My mom has always been proud how well behaved and easy children she had, and I'm starting to feel angry about that. We weren't well behaving, we were in total alarm state all the time. We weren't easy, we simply lack all the things we would have needed, but never had.

In a way I, and my sister as well, do know our parents love us. They have not harmed us to be mean or sadistic, they have harmed us with being so clueless and having problems way too deep for them to handle. But the truth also is my mom has always loved our dad way more she did us, and she still does. It's probably codependency as well, but it is clear who comes first. It is also clear our relationships had not changed over time. She still does suicide attempts and then calls me. But when I am having hard times I have no one to turn to, she is the last person I have strength to be in contact with when I'm not well, and I can't take any support from anyone, because I've never learned how, I never had anyone. She can be concerned about me, but not the supporting way. Then she starts calling and expects me to sooth her down to believe everything is fine with me. But I do not play these games anymore. I do not think we are close anymore, I do not think we ever were. It's all just a sick mind game, and I've stopped participating.

In my family our parent always got drunk, but there were NEVER any bottles anywhere. They somehow thought we wouldn't know, if we didn't see the bottles. I think that is even worse than to drink openly. Then we could have known when it starts, and be more relaxed when they were sober. But because of hiding and lying, we could never knew, even if they didn't drink every day, we always needed to be alarmed for them starting to suddenly get drunk.

Lacking support, and parents fighting in front of little kids is way enough to cause severe trauma. Kids do have it in them, the knowledge they can't survive without their parents. And if they cant rely on them, they are in danger, even if no one harms them straightly. There is also studies that tell it is more traumatic to a child to see their parent being abused, than to be abused themselves. The lack of control of your environment is the worst thing. To a little child that is life threatening situation in their minds not to have access to reliable adults if needed. And in families where there is substance abuse and mental problems, kids can never know if they have someone or not.

Zor I don't think your down playing things. I think your system created you to believe that nothing particularly bad ever happened. All the knowledge and awareness and emotional pain was kept strictly separate from you so that you could carry on as if everything was fine. I think that is why you had absolutely no awareness of your parts before someone on the outside accused you of pretending to be your others.

Floralie I relate to a lot of what your saying about constantly being alarmed and on edge. We respond differently for the most part and we created Z. She is fascinated by how people work and will observe everyone we know and is interested in subjects that relate to the way people behave (so psychology, philosophy, religion, politics stuff like that.) And she only allows us to trust that someone when we can accurately predict that persons behaviour and feelings that they will behave in an acceptable way. But it is exhausting constantly watching and predicting ways in which someone might harm us.

I second what NyxX is saying.

it is massive and hard to come to terms with. it is immensely difficult to come to terms with.

I was abused and neglected as a child.

that's a really simple sentence. and one that was next to impossible to accept that it applied to me. that my childhood experiences were not normal. that they were in fact - traumatic and abusive. that I was not loved and cared for. I was neglected. I didn't think those words applied to me. that they were part of my life. finally I reached a point (in my 30s) where I was able to realize that these words were in fact true descriptions of my childhood and adolescent experiences.

poverty, trauma, abuse, neglect. hard, hard, hard words to accept.

the way you are approaching this reminds me of my 20s. when I was just sort of wondering what was normal and what exactly I had been through since I had no memories.

and let me tell you. the more I remember the ######6 sicker it makes me. but at least we are remembering really slow.

I have to go. I am getting really angry now. I ######6 HATE people who abuse children.

I just wanted to add that it's absolutely fine to feel the way you feel now.

to think the way you think now. to wonder.

my experiences aren't your experiences.

you are fine just the way you are right now. it's your journey.

I didn't mean to dump my $#%^ all over it. I just remember going through something similar. in ways I still am. I had a nightmare last week that was dreadfully, most certainly, stomach turning recovered memory. and it's still ######6 me up. I really hate this $#%^. imagine what we could all do with our lives if we didn't have to spend so much energy coping with it? God, that's what I wonder most of all. what's it like to just be a normal person. with normal dreams and worries. and normal sleep. and regular friendships and relationships. and I guess we'll never know. well always be looking through the glass wondering but never going through the door.

forgive me. I think I'm having my own issues here.

it's ok to wonder. you are fine the way you are. right now.

BeccaBee wrote: imagine what we could all do with our lives if we didn't have to spend so much energy coping with it? God, that's what I wonder most of all. what's it like to just be a normal person. with normal dreams and worries. and normal sleep. and regular friendships and relationships. and I guess we'll never know. well always be looking through the glass wondering but never going through the door.

That is so true, BeccaBee. I fear the day when I truly understand I've wasted 40 years of my life in to nothing. Just being in my own head space, when the real world has always been there. All the things I could have had. NORMAL things. Education, work, love life, maybe my own family. But no, mostly I'm stuck being a 14 year old boy in a world that doesn't exist. And I choose to be that, because normal life is so exhausting. And because I don't exist either.

I want also to make clear that I didn't mean with my writing there couldn't be special incidents and more traumas you need to know, Zor. If your parts tell you do, then that is the case. I don't know anything about your life. It can be I really don't know anything even about my own life, because I don't have contact with any parts who would hold my memories. I'm in contact only with parts, who have their own backgrounds. Majority of them has been sexually abused. I have not. I have thought if there is a reason why that subject is still so big in my system that almost all of them have experienced it? Actually all but the adults.

Floralie wrote:I know my main trauma is just the totally disturbed atmosphere in our home when I grew up. And the fact we had no other adults in our life, so me and my sister were totally on our own mentally. There was never anyone to support our feelings. If we had feelings, our dad got upset and attacked our mom. Just verbally, even non verbal ways, by just short breath and the look, but we knew it meant danger to our mom. Actually, he very rarely was physically abusive. But as we have discussed about it later on with my sister, there is no difference if the hitting actually happened that time or not, the possibility of it was always real and affected like it would have happened every time. The fear we had was the same.

I thought for years I was very close to my mom, until I realized she was the healthier one of them who always had the chance to safe herself and us from there, but instead of doing that, she turned to us, her children, and told us how awful her life was and how awful our dad and his family were. It was true, we felt for her and protected her. We advised and begged for them to break up, but she didn't turn to us to get advice, she just wanted us to support her, and she went on with life like always. It was a custom, always after their fights when dad had past out, we went to look for her from outside, told it's safe to came in, and she vented about her problems. Never once she even had a slightest thought about asking how this all affected to us.

She always said we can talk to her about anything and she will always be on our side. But in the reality, she never asked about any of those things. In order for kids to tell about their hardships, it is the parents job to regularly ask questions and care, and listen. When I was a teenager, and my classmates were so concerned about me they went to talk about me to school psychologist and she came to me asking if I would want to start to visit her, my mom said it was OK, but I am not allowed to tell anything that happens at home. She wasn't concerned about me, she was concerned someone could find out about her drinking and the shameful truth our life was not normal like she pretended.
Like they wouldn't known it already. The house we lived in was not in the condition to anyone to live in. My dad looks like an alcoholic without any doubts. The fact is, she wanted us to be there for her, but she was never there for us. Now she has also admitted that, that she chose to do things easy, not the right way. I do know she has been very depressed also and probably didn't have energy to my problems when they came obvious. Also she has an ability to forget bad things like they wouldn't exist, just like my dad does as well.

And after forbidding me to tell the truth, she was amazed I had lied to the psychologist, and told her stories from my imaginary life. What the heck did she expect me to do in there, not tell the truth, but not lie either? Now I am able to be angry about all this, but then I didn't see her doing anything wrong.

When I was about 20, I had been hospitalized once for my problems and I had been on rehab for dug abuse (legal drugs like bentsodiazepines and codein). I was, for some reason I don't remember, meeting a social worker and she saw from my papers I had that kind of history. I was still living at home, and she said the city can give me my own apartment immediately, so I don't have to live in there with my parents anymore. I was too old to be the customer of child protection service anymore, but they were willing to give me my own home to live in. But I was still so brain washed by my mother, I replied I can not move out, because then my mom would be left alone with my dad. That is what mom kept telling me. My sister had already moved out. The social worker was the first one who told me, my mom is not just an innocent victim. She is an adult who makes her own choices. And just now she is choosing to use me to able her to continue the way of life she is having, at my cost. It's been 20 years when I first heard it from the social worker, and I'm still slowly figuring out how true it was.

Now that my sister has children of her own, the new generation of trauma free children after many generations of traumatized, I can see how she (my mom) has no ability to take any responsibility of children at all. We were very easy to control when we were children, but it was not due to normal discipline and rules to protect us, like it has to be if she babysits for my sisters kids, it was all this disturbed relationships between people that inhibited us from having identity or any feeling of our own. We were under a very strict control all the time, without anyone ever needing to do any discipline or give any rule. My mom has always been proud how well behaved and easy children she had, and I'm starting to feel angry about that. We weren't well behaving, we were in total alarm state all the time. We weren't easy, we simply lack all the things we would have needed, but never had.

In a way I, and my sister as well, do know our parents love us. They have not harmed us to be mean or sadistic, they have harmed us with being so clueless and having problems way too deep for them to handle. But the truth also is my mom has always loved our dad way more she did us, and she still does. It's probably codependency as well, but it is clear who comes first. It is also clear our relationships had not changed over time. She still does suicide attempts and then calls me. But when I am having hard times I have no one to turn to, she is the last person I have strength to be in contact with when I'm not well, and I can't take any support from anyone, because I've never learned how, I never had anyone. She can be concerned about me, but not the supporting way. Then she starts calling and expects me to sooth her down to believe everything is fine with me. But I do not play these games anymore. I do not think we are close anymore, I do not think we ever were. It's all just a sick mind game, and I've stopped participating.

In my family our parent always got drunk, but there were NEVER any bottles anywhere. They somehow thought we wouldn't know, if we didn't see the bottles. I think that is even worse than to drink openly. Then we could have known when it starts, and be more relaxed when they were sober. But because of hiding and lying, we could never knew, even if they didn't drink every day, we always needed to be alarmed for them starting to suddenly get drunk.

Lacking support, and parents fighting in front of little kids is way enough to cause severe trauma. Kids do have it in them, the knowledge they can't survive without their parents. And if they cant rely on them, they are in danger, even if no one harms them straightly. There is also studies that tell it is more traumatic to a child to see their parent being abused, than to be abused themselves. The lack of control of your environment is the worst thing. To a little child that is life threatening situation in their minds not to have access to reliable adults if needed. And in families where there is substance abuse and mental problems, kids can never know if they have someone or not.

Some of that sounds somewhat similar to my childhood. I don't remember Mom & Dad fighting a lot- but I know it did happen when we lived in Japan (my k-part of 3rd grade years). This is when Dad was drinking a lot. This is when they were separated for a period, and Dad put his hand through a piece of glass that I mentioned- drunk and angry.
I remember being able to hear them fighting through the heat vents in the house upstairs in my bedroom. One of the others, Pixie I think, told me I used to swallow small screws or pennies to try and make myself sick to stop the fighting.

Mom and I were close, so I thought... but a lot of that time came from when we were in CA (from 3rd-grade until 8th grade) and she'd tell us a lot of her abuse as a child. While she said we could talk to her about anything, and I did for a lot, there was also a lot we DIDN'T talk about. It was during the last 18 months or so of the 5 years there that she was sick a lot - anorexia. Starving herself nearly to death a few times, struggling with past hurts, my dad being gone remote (a full year assignment away from the family), and even before this there were fights some times, still.

During this 5 years, also, was when we tried to adopt those three kids- the oldest of which, just a little older than I was, possibly touched me inappropriately (and certainly was "exposing herself" to me- I don't remember either of these things happening either)... Something Mom & Dad are supposed to protect a child from, right? In this case, the source of the problem was brought in BY the parents (even if unaware and with good intentions, right?).

In the end, I don't think I was directly "abused" by my parents. I think it's most likely that their fighting, Dad's drinking and getting drunk, Mom hanging out with friends to "escape" it some times, and the issues those things caused... the time in CA with the foster kids (6-7 months or so), the on and off fighting with Mom & Dad, Mom being so sick that year Dad was gone... all of it likely contributed to this.

I know by the time we left CA, in 93 just before I started HS, I was already emotionally immature and behind those of a similar age- still crying when I got scolded or didn't get my way in many cases for example. It took work on my part to overcome that for fear of being humiliated by friends and peers. I was already sneaking girl's clothes and being unaware of it until later - likely the girl parts of me (one of which claims to have been around since Japan and my youngest years) acting since I have no memory of it. And this stuff would go on, seemingly at random for years... even into the present day.

To add to the stress- we often lived paycheck to paycheck. Sometimes, in CA and Alaska (where I went to HS), there were times when Mom & Dad had to rely on the "advanced check cashing" places which often just rip you off a little- but there were bills to pay, money was tight. That was ALWAYS a concern growing up. My brother and I weren't left without a ton, we were spoiled to a degree, but money was ALWAYS a concern for my parents as we were growing up, at least until well into my HS years. IDK if that mattered or not, but I know it was always in the back of my mind, even as a kid.

IDK. This IS massive, y'all are right about that. It's scary and hard to understand. It's hard to cope with and come to terms with. It's weird to think that when I have this 8-10 hours a week (on average) of time "lost" that someone else is acting through and in me- without me even being aware of it or what was done when I am "back".

Side note- since that first night (the 7th), I've had this same nightmare two more times (the 13th and 18th). :/

Zor, when a parent makes you to be her parent, instead of being one to you, it's a form of abuse. It's just very hard for the kid to realize anything is wrong. You feel special and trusted, when your parent opens up to you. Of course you do, because you are being treated like an adult and not like a little kid. It still is abuse. TRIGGER WARNING, mentioning sexual abuse: It's not so much different from the sexual abuse when you think about it, the way some pedophiles do it. They come close with the child, create a trust. Make you feel special, and then expose you to adult things you should not be exposed to, and tell how special you are because of it. TRIGGER WARNING ENDS.

I think parents who use their kids as they were their partners, parents or adult friends, don't really realize it themselves either, they are doing something wrong. They are the first ones to tell how close they are with their kids. "We are like best friends!"

But they should not be. They should be like best moms and sons or daughters, not friends sharing adult stuff. ANY kind of adult stuff. They should be having that same trust and sharing kid stuff to support the child. That's what parenthood is.

I think the result of it is just what we have. When you are being adult as a child, it's not possible to grow up in reality, to be real adult when the calendar tells you, you are actually all grown up now. But no, I can not be. How can I be, when I'm still waiting for my time to finally be a kid?

Me and my sister reacted differently. She wanted us to be very quiet, because she wanted to hear every word when they were fighting. It was her way of trying to control it. I remember I could just shut it off and play like nothing was wrong. I was very good with dissociation. My sister grew up and is having bad childhood memories, but she lives completely normal life without true mental problems and her children are free from any trauma. She is working in child protection services. And I? I am still very good with dissociation.

Floralie wrote:Zor, when a parent makes you to be her parent, instead of being one to you, it's a form of abuse. It's just very hard for the kid to realize anything is wrong. You feel special and trusted, when your parent opens up to you. Of course you do, because you are being treated like an adult and not like a little kid. It still is abuse. TRIGGER WARNING, mentioning sexual abuse: It's not so much different from the sexual abuse when you think about it, the way some pedophiles do it. They come close with the child, create a trust. Make you feel special, and then expose you to adult things you should not be exposed to, and tell how special you are because of it. TRIGGER WARNING ENDS.

I think parents who use their kids as they were their partners, parents or adult friends, don't really realize it themselves either, they are doing something wrong. They are the first ones to tell how close they are with their kids. "We are like best friends!"

But they should not be. They should be like best moms and sons or daughters, not friends sharing adult stuff. ANY kind of adult stuff. They should be having that same trust and sharing kid stuff to support the child. That's what parenthood is.

I think the result of it is just what we have. When you are being adult as a child, it's not possible to grow up in reality, to be real adult when the calendar tells you, you are actually all grown up now. But no, I can not be. How can I be, when I'm still waiting for my time to finally be a kid?

Me and my sister reacted differently. She wanted us to be very quiet, because she wanted to hear every word when they were fighting. It was her way of trying to control it. I remember I could just shut it off and play like nothing was wrong. I was very good with dissociation. My sister grew up and is having bad childhood memories, but she lives completely normal life without true mental problems and her children are free from any trauma. She is working in child protection services. And I? I am still very good with dissociation.

There was a time, during the CA years, when my Mom opened up a lot. She never told me details, just that she was hit/beat by her brothers, and "touched". This was, I'm almost certain, after Tina (the foster kid that possibly/probably touched me) was come and gone.

She took on a more "friend role" that last year or so in CA, when Dad was gone and even in the months after he was back before we moved to Alaska. IDK. Hard to say.